Coronavirus, Justice Department, Democrats: Your Thursday Briefing

I waited for him to finish his espresso. Outside, I introduced myself. Initially he didn’t respond, then he got angry and said I should go through his lawyer. I said, “I’ve been trying, but he hasn’t been returning messages and phone calls.”

Eventually he started talking. He might have thought, “Why isn’t my lawyer defending me?”

And he was happy someone had read his work. I could say, “Well, in this book you said …” That got him talking a lot.

How much of his work did you end up reading?

He wrote almost 50 books, and I read about a dozen. None of them have been translated into English, but I grew up in Montreal and went to French schools. And two colleagues in the bureau read books that I didn’t read. Many were out of circulation.

So one of my colleagues spent days at the library scanning books and diaries from the ’70s and ’80s, and then we printed out the scans.

What was he like in person?

His reputation has always been that he’s extremely charming, and he was. He’s 83, but he speaks perfectly, in elegant, full sentences.

Was that what protected him?

I think that partly it is. And people thought he was a good writer. I don’t think a manual laborer would get away with what he did.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Chris

Thank you
Mark Josephson and Kathleen Massara provided the break from the news. Andrea Kannapell, the Briefings editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is about the coronavirus outbreak.
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